Canyon of the Sphinx (4 page)

Kathlyn knew why Jensen was
anxious to get out of Marcus' presence. He scared the heck out of most people
the first time around. "Debra Jo is the best one to show you what you need
to know."

Debra Jo and Jensen left the
chamber without another word. Kathlyn stood there and shook her head.

"Marcus, your amiability
never ceases to amaze me," she said.  "You scared that woman
off."

Marcus was bent back over the
sarcophagus. He didn't say a word. Kathlyn meandered up behind him and leaned
down, very close, so her lips were by his ear. "You're such a
meanie," she kissed his ear, smiling when she felt a chill raced through
him. "How's it going?"

"On schedule," Marcus
sounded in control of himself, but it was difficult with his wife's hot breath
in his ear. "I want to have the conservators get at this by the end of the
month so we can have the mummy x-rayed."

"Have you heard back from
your parents yet?"

"Not yet. I left a message
yesterday. I'll call them again in a little while if I don't hear from
them."

Kathlyn kissed his temple and
stood up. "All right," she said. "I've got to go finish making
sure everything is ready to go for my trip to the jungles."

Without looking up, Marcus
smacked her on the butt as she turned to leave. He knew she wouldn't dare
retaliate with him so close to the sarcophagus. When she turned menacingly to
him, he pretended he was deeply involved in what he was doing.

"You'll get yours,
Burton," she growled. "When you least expect it."

"Promises, promises."

"Remember; we're going to
the Yucatan. Snakes and all sorts of creepy crawlies can end up in your
sleeping bag."

"You'd better be the only
thing slithering in my sleeping bag."

"You just never know."

He did look at her, then.
"If that happens, you'll rue the day you were born, I promise."

Her response was to laugh
wickedly and leave the chamber. Marcus could hear her hooting and cackling all
the way out into Chamber E.  She was such a character. With a smirk, he turned
back to his work. Juliana, still on the other side of the chamber, shook her
head sadly.

"You're in for it now,
Marcus. No mercy."

He knew that. That was the fun
part of being married to her.

***

"They're not coming."

"What?"

"My dad's sick. He's in the
hospital. That's why they didn't call me back right away. Dad's got something
in his left lung and they need to do a biopsy."

Kathlyn was more concerned for the
elderly Al Burton than she was for the fact that Marcus wouldn't be able to
come with her now. "How long has this been going on? More importantly, why
didn't they call to tell us?"

Marcus looked worried. He sat
down on the futon in their office tent. "Mom said they didn't want to
worry me. She makes it sound like there's nothing to be concerned over, but in
the next breath she's telling me that he's going to be in the hospital for
another week. There's no way he can travel."

"Of course not,"
Kathlyn agreed. She thought quickly. "Let me call my mom and see if she'll
come.  I still have to leave tomorrow, but maybe in a few days you can meet me
there if my mom can get her act together."

Marcus nodded his head faintly.
His thoughts were on his father, not traveling. Kathlyn sat down beside him and
put her arms around him. "Your dad's going to be fine," she said
softly. "I'm sure it's nothing to be concerned over."

He sighed heavily and patted her
arm. "We'll see," he said. "But the fact remains that I've got
to stay here with the kids."

As if on cue, Ethan Burton came
crashing into the tent with his brother on his heels. Marcus and Kathlyn
watched the two of them fight over a small truck as the nanny, with daughter Eden
in her arms, came rushing in after them to break up the fight.  All Marcus had
to do was snap his fingers and the boys immediately stopped tussling. Even at
two years of age, they had learned, wisely, to respect and fear their father.
Marcus held out an open hand and Ethan, knowing exactly what his father meant,
begrudgingly plopped the toy into the massive palm.

 "Who had it first?" he
asked.

The boys looked at each other a
moment before pretending they weren't really interested in the truck after all.
The laptop computer and shredder were much more interesting. The baby began to
whimper when she saw Kathlyn and the nanny put her in her mother's lap. 
Kathlyn kissed the dark head and cradled her daughter.

While the rambunctious sandy-haired
boys resembled their mother, the baby was clearly Marcus’ image with her dark
hair and cobalt blue eyes. Marcus watched Kathlyn with the baby, knowing how
hard it was on her to have to leave the children. He put his hand on the back
of her head to comfort her, his mind moving between his wife's departure and
his father's health. The twins rushed up to him, a pen in hand, wanting some
paper to write with. For their age, they communicated quite well and Marcus
found a couple of piece of scrap paper and a few high-lighter pens for them. Eden,
seeing that her brothers had fun things to play with, wriggled off her mother's
lap and went to see what the fuss was all about.

The nanny was astute enough to
leave them alone for the precious remaining time they had left until Kathlyn
left. After leaving a message for her mother, Kathlyn spent the rest of the
afternoon with the children, drawing, playing with trucks or whatever else
captured their fancy. Jensen was set up in the VIP tent as an office, but she
wandered in several times during the course of the afternoon with questions for
Marcus. She was very respectful, apparently more fearful of the kids than interested
in them. Marcus wasn't in the greatest mood, contributing to her timid manner.
After her fourth visit, Kathlyn didn't see her again until sundown.

"Dr. Burton," Jensen
stood outside the tent. "Are you busy?"

Marcus was sitting at his desk
with Ethan on his lap. They were playing a preschool computer game together.
"Come on in."

Jensen entered timidly, glasses
on her nose and a collection of paper in her hand. "Sorry to bother you
again," she said. "But I seem to have run across a problem."

Kathlyn lay on the futon with the
baby on her chest, not paying much attention to Jensen. The woman put the
papers in front of Marcus.

"I was going through the
year end totals for last year and for some reason, there are some confusing
expense reports."

Marcus peered at the paperwork. "How
so?"

Jensen pointed to a few lines on
the spreadsheet, highlighted with gray shading. "Over one hundred thousand
dollars has been paid out in expenses for things that I found questionable. So
I did a little digging."

"And?"

Jensen pulled out a sheet of
paper from her small stack. "I have some expense reports here," she
said quietly. "I just pulled them out randomly, from the files. Expenses
like a color printer and an exchange server. Sound familiar?"

"No."

"I'm not surprised. I can't
find any records of the purchase, no receipts, no requisition or purchase
orders, not even the equipment itself. Does an archaeological site really need
an exchange server?"

Kathlyn was listening at this
point. "Of course not. Who signed the expense reports?"

"You did, Dr. Trent."

Kathlyn sat up, holding out her
hand. Jensen gave her the paperwork. Kathlyn scrutinized the document, her gaze
lingering on the signature at the bottom. "I would have never signed for
something like this," she said. "But it's my signature, no doubt
about it."

Marcus put Ethan down. He began
pouring over the documents that Jensen had put on his desk. "I've never
seen this stuff before," he said. "It's all sorts of expense reports
for things we don't even use around here; Christ, there's even a plasma screen
television listed here. Kathlyn, your signature is on every one of these."

With Eden in her arms, Kathlyn
leaned over his shoulder and studied the forms. Jensen stood back, watching Dr.
Trent's face flicker with confusion.

"I don't recognize any of
these," Kathlyn said.  She looked up at Jensen. "Where did you find
this stuff?"

"In the files."

"Impossible. I know what is
in those files and these reports weren't there. I never signed any of
these."

Jensen's black eyes went from warmly
respectful to hardened pieces of onyx in a fraction of a second. "But you
admit that's your signature, right?"

"It looks like it, that's
for sure. But I think I would know what I've signed and not signed, especially
for high-dollar items like this."

"I can only tell you where I
found them, Dr. Trent. Is it possible someone else signed your name without
your knowing?"

"No," Marcus answered
for her. "But if Kathlyn said she didn't sign these, then she didn't sign
them. Did you ask Debra Jo about them?"

"She's never seen them,
either."

"Then I don't know where
they came from."

Jensen cocked a long, thin
eyebrow. "Well, we'd better find out. With an audit less than six weeks
away, this kind of thing would be... well, devastating to say the least. With
deviations like this, the implications are serious."

"Implications?" Kathlyn
repeated, outraged.  "Like what?"

"Fraud. Misuse of funds. You
name it. Since your name is on the reports, you'll possibly be facing a
criminal investigation."

"Me?" Kathlyn was struck.

"Your name is on them."

Kathlyn’s outrage bloomed.
"That's so ludicrous, it's laughable. Everything from SCU is carefully and
internally audited, I might add, by your department and, primarily, you. How is
it that no one there caught these forms and that you somehow just happened to
'find' as stack of them in my files?"

"What are you suggesting,
Dr. Trent?"

"I don't know. Maybe
somebody planted these damn things."

The black eyes cooled. "And
just who would do that?"

Kathlyn matched the cool
expression, exceeding it by leaps and bounds. "Off hand, I couldn't say,”
she said coldly. “But you found them. And I never saw these before you came.”

Marcus knew by the look on
Kathlyn's face that she was ready to strike.  It looked very much like Jensen
was accusing her of something completely out of her character. A puzzling
situation had the potential to turn ugly and he stood up, handing the documents
back to Jensen.

"Well," he said with
quiet authority, "we won't be solving any of this tonight. I'm going to be
here for a few more days after Kathlyn leaves for the Yucatan and I'll help you
sort through this stuff."

Jensen accepted the papers,
suddenly subdued with Marcus' statement. But Marcus wasn't stupid; he had seen
how she had the potential to flare against Kathlyn. If the woman was foolish
enough to flare against his wife, he truly pitied her.

"I apologize," Jensen
said after a moment. "I didn't mean to offend or upset you. It's just that
you're absolutely right; I should have seen reports like this, but I didn't, so
I'm as guilty as you are in this."

"I'm not guilty of
anything," Kathlyn was still hot. "And I absolutely resent the fact
that you seem to be accusing me of wrong doing."

Hearing their mother's angry
voice had the kids looking wide-eyed at their parents. Marcus took his wife by
the arm and pulled her, gently, around Jensen and positioned her near the door.

"Sweetheart, take the kids
and go find Salima," he said. "I'll meet you at the car in a
minute."

"I'm not accusing you of
wrong doing, Dr. Trent," Jensen insisted. "But this looks very bad
for all of us. I just want to get to the bottom of it, same as you."

Kathlyn turned to look at her,
her features pale and strained. "I didn't do anything wrong," she
said, her voice hoarse. "And I don't need this bullshit. I've got an
expedition coming up that's going to require all of my concentration." She
smacked the papers in Jensen's hand. "You figure it out."

She left the tent. Marcus watched
her walk across the darkening compound with two kids in tow and one in her
arms, knowing how upset she was. Whenever she started using foul language, she
was very angry indeed. He scratched his dark head and looked at Jensen.

"Ms. Elder," he said
slowly. "I understand that you have a job to do. As I said before, we need
your help and we appreciate it. But off the record, don't ever come at my wife
like that again. She's the hardest worker we have around here and her integrity
is flawless. If she says she didn't sign those expense reports, then she didn't
sign them. I suggest you take her word for it."

"I wasn't trying to accuse
her," Jensen said. "But her name is on them, Dr. Burton. Who else am
I going to question about them?"